Oracle Blog

Danny Coward's Weblog

Wednesday Sep 10, 2008

Each morning I check the news
wires, blogs and get the
podcasts downloading to try to stay on top of what's going on in the
world of Java for client devices from smartcards to desktops and
everything inbetween.

Friday Sep 05, 2008

Staying on top of what's going on in the Java world is a
part of my job I really enjoy. I have a big list of feeds for my
favorite bloggers, news sites, and forums. But I tend to skim so I
can rush to the next thing. And my emails, IM buddies, everyone's I
know's tweets and facebook statuses are just a click away, ready to
distract me at any moment.

Sound familiar ?

So I enjoy the times when I am
restricted from this skittish behavior: in the car, at the airport,
walking to the coffee shop. I enjoy them because I can focus in,
without
interruption, on some of my favorite technology podcasts.

For those of you who are interested and are looking for something new
to tune into in the area of Java and client technologies, I put
together a little survey of
the ones I subscribe to. And if you feel like it, let me know if you
have a top podcast in a comment below.

2.7 million is the
number of mobile phones that were sold, on average, every single day in
2007 around
the world. Now, I \*heart\* my iPhone, its a wonderful device, but the
iPhone reached the million
mark 74 days after its launch. That's 74 days to sell as many iPhones as
it took just 9 hours to sell
as many mobile devices.

If you're looking for a quick and
easy way to add some
fit and finish to a Java ME mobile application for use on the version of Java ME that
is deployed today on billions of
devices, you need to check it out.

It takes some of the familiar core ideas of Swing - some of the
widgets, layouts, themes - and shrinkwraps them into something good
looking, powerful, small and easy to get
started with.

In
January, BluRay emerged as the winner of the biggest
format war for a
generation. So just in case you didn't know BD-J, the programming
model for interactive BluRay content (so its on all the BluRay
players), is based on Java
ME (Personal
Basis Profile, to be precise), and Neil Young announced he's
releasing his full catalog on BluRay, using BD-J to provide all the
interactivity.